Arthur Demarest

Classic Maya Defensive Systems and Warfare in the Petexbatun Region: Archaeological Evidence and Interpretations

From 1989 to 1996, excavation and surveys were carried out at dozens of sites and intersite areas in the southwestern Peten by the Defensive Systems Subproject of the Vanderbilt Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project and by subsequent related Vanderbilt investigations. The excavations and analyses explored fortification systems, related settlement, and artifactual evidence. Beginning at about a.d . 760, the major centers of the Classic Maya civilization in the Petexbatun region were fortified by a massive expenditure of labor on defensive walls of masonry, usually surmounted by wooden palisades. As warfare accelerated, major centers and later even small hilltop villages were located in highly defensible positions and were fortified by walls, palisades, moats, and baffled gateways. Despite these efforts, all major centers were virtually abandoned by the early ninth century. By a.d . 830, only the island fortress of Punta de Chimino and a very reduced and scattered population remained in the Petexbatun region.

Radiocarbon Chronology for the Late Archaic and Formative Periods on the Pacific Coast of Southeastern Mesoamerica

Archaeological excavations carried out during the past five years along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador have recovered 79 new 14 C dates for the Late Archaic and Early to Middle Formative periods. We analyze these new dates along with 25 previously published dates to refine a sequence of 10 archaeological phases spanning almost three and a half millennia, from ca. 4000 to 650 B.C. The phases are summarized with a brief description of their most salient characteristics. We include illustrations of the Early Formative period ceramics and figurines from the Mazatan region. The sequence of phases reveals a trajectory of cultural evolution beginning in the Archaic period with the mobile hunting, fishing, and gathering Chantuto people. By 1550 B.C., the first ceramic-using sedentary communities appeared on the coast of Chiapas. They were hunter-fisher-gatherers who supplemented their food supply with cultivated plants, including maize and beans. We suggest that by the Locona phase (1400–1250 B.C.) in Chiapas, they began the transition from egalitarian sociopolitical organization to simple chiefdoms, leaving behind evidence of large-scale architectural constructions, long-distance imports such as obsidian and jade, and elaborately crafted prestige goods. Also in Chiapas, during the Cherla phase (1100–1000 B.C.), ceramic and figurine styles, nearly identical to those found at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan on the Gulf Coast, made their first appearance. Many of the local artifact styles were gradually replaced by styles that became increasingly widespread in Mesoamerica. The chronology presented here shows that these changes were roughly contemporaneous with similar ones in neighboring regions of Mesoamerica.

The Vanderbilt Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project 1989–1994: Overview, History, and Major Results of a Multidisciplinary Study of the Classic Maya collapse

The background, research design, structure, personnel, and history of investigations of the Vanderbilt Petexbatun Archaeological Project are summarized and critiqued. The major findings of each of the dozen subprojects of this multidisciplinary investigation of Maya civilization in the southwestern Peten region of Guatemala are reviewed. Subproject results include important new evidence on Classic Maya history, warfare, ecology, nutrition, cave ritual, social organization, and trade. These are summarized with particular emphasis on the implications of the Petexbatun findings for theories of the decline of southern lowland Maya civilization at the end of the Classic period.

ECONOMY, EXCHANGE, AND POWER: NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE LATE CLASSIC MAYA PORT CITY OF CANCUEN

Abstract The site of Cancuen held a strategic position as “head of navigation” of the Pasión River and the physical nexus of land and river routes between the southern highlands, the Maya lowlands, and the transversal route to Tabasco and Veracruz. For that reason, the well-defined ports of Cancuen were critical to both Classic Maya highland/lowland commerce and interactions with the far west. All aspects of Cancuen were related to its role as a port city. By the late eighth century, evidence suggests that in the site epicenter peninsula ports and other aspects of the economy were elite controlled and supervised, based on associated architectural complexes, artifacts, imports, and placement. Recent evidence indicates that, in addition to previously discussed long-distance exchange in exotics such as jade and pyrite, Cancuen also was involved in very large-scale obsidian transport and production, as well as probable exchange of other piedmont commodities such as cacao, cotton, salt, achiote (Bixa orellana), and vanilla. Distribution of architectural, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence and an administrative/ritual palace all indicate growing roles for nobles in these economic activities, particularly the ports. It would appear that, as elsewhere, nobles were taking a more direct mercantile role and that many aspects of the multepal system of power, characteristic of Postclassic period societies, were already in place at Cancuen by the late eighth century. The failure of Cancuens early transition to a Terminal Classic political economy may be related to its dependence on highland resources and overextended trade networks.

Sympathetic Ethnocentrism, Repression, and Auto-repression of Q’eqchi’ Maya Blood Sacrifice

From the period of the contact with Europeans up to the present, blood sacrifice of turkeys and other animals has been a fundamental element in Q’eqchi’ Maya ritual, religion, and culture. In the face of suppression by the church, evangelicals, and, especially, the government, such sacrifices actually became a form of resistance in the 1960s–1980s. Today, however, institutions and individuals sympathetic to the Q’eqchi’ and their struggles systematically omit animal sacrifice from descriptions of Maya culture and from educational programs on Maya culture, even in Q’eqchi’ schools. Similarly, elements of the Maya movement, national spiritual leaders, and government-sponsored publications also omit discussion of sacrifice or they grossly underestimate its scale, importance, and nature. Some educational programs, religious groups, and support organizations even verbally discourage such practices, believing that they reflect poorly on the Maya and on the contemporary sanitized visions of an environmentally sensitive and pantheistic people. These manifestations of sympathetic ethnocentrism have a damaging effect in some communities and on Q’eqchi’ self-image. The issue has become divisive, affecting community and interregional unity. Disagreements concerning animal sacrifice are also causing intergenerational conflict within communities, as younger members are more influenced by education programs and other sources that deprecate animal sacrifice. Thus, well-meaning attempts to sanitize the Q’eqchi’ Maya “image” are, in fact, instruments of assimilation which are ultimately repressive and deleterious to Q’eqchi’ communities, intracommunity and intercommunity identity, solidarity, and resistance.

MAYA ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: THE PROGRESS, THE PERILS, AND THE PROMISE

Abstract In the past 20 years, what were once considered specialized auxiliary subdisciplines or analytical approaches such as bioarchaeology, paleozoology, subterranean archaeology, and material culture studies have become central to all research due to refinements of their analytic tools. Meanwhile, building on earlier progress in epigraphy, work on the Classic period truly has become historical archaeology. These advances provide a much greater understanding of ancient Maya ecology, economy, and politics and insights into the details, not just trends, in culture history. Realization of this potential, however, is imperiled by problems in research design and interpretation. Project structures rarely allows for complete and independent application of these enhanced fields, while the traditional elements of ceramic classification and chronology have not kept pace. The erratic sample of both Maya lowland and highland regions needs to addressed, rather than glossed over by extrapolations or assumptions about interaction and expansionism. Institutional structures and financial limitations have led to many superficial studies masked by quasi-theoretical terminologies. Constructive solutions, most exemplified in some current projects, include the obligation to try to apply all available techniques and approaches. To make that feasible, larger projects should be fragmented into multi-institutional collaborations. Greater emphasis must be given to classifications and excavations that generate ceramic microchronologies. Above all, we must investigate the extensive unstudied or understudied regions. Finally, most challenging is the need to collectively confront academic structures that encourage rapid, incomplete studies and discourage more substantial publications and long term multi-institutional research.